The decision was taken today after two back to back meetings of state executive members and office bearers of the party at its Bhubaneswar headquarters.

Interestingly, former president KV Singhdeo, senior leader Dillip Ray, and Bijoy Mohapatra — who had been skipping various party functions for some reason or the other – were also in attendance.

Apart from the block level demonstrations, the party will hold a demonstration in front of the Raj Bhavan in Bhubaneswar on July 4, said BJP MLA Pradip Purohit speaking to reporters after the meetings.

“We will certainly go to the public and let them know what happened. How the ruling party here turned intolerant and made a murderous assault on a visiting union minister. People across the state are denouncing the incident. Besides, we will expose the failures of Naveen Patnaik’s 16-year rule. That party has to answer for what it has done,” said Purohit.

BJD, on the other hand, said that BJP is doing unnecessary politics.

“A drowning BJP is clutching at a straw to survive. BJP doesn’t have any other issue. It is unnecessarily trying to blow up the issue and doing politics over it. There has been no attack. BJD doesn’t believe in violence. I call upon them to become the witness and provide the evidence, if they can. An investigation is anyway on,” said Prasanna Acharya, senior BJD leader and father of MLA Debesh Acharya, who allegedly led the attack on Gangwar.